Kya Pyaar Karoge Mujhse....

Chapter 23- So We Meet Again!

Chapter 23

November 2021

London, UK

It's been three days since Annika left with her family. The Oberois tried to be normal, tried to be fine as before but in vain. In front of each other, they were all right, even laughed and enjoyed themselves but when alone; they all had their own, separate thoughts, their guilt, and their pain eating them away, their hearts shattering into hundreds of pieces.

But one thing was common amongst them all and that was their concern for a certain blue-eyed man, who called himself the protective wall of this beautiful but fragile family. They all could see his struggle to be fine, to make himself whole again. They could see him try his best to smile for them, to laugh with them and they would sigh when they saw his glassy eyes with unshed tears, his determination to stand strong for them while he was breaking into a million shards inside.

And they could do nothing for the man who was their protector, their anchor, who lived for his family and his family alone. Who could shield his elders from every problem and tragedy, who could give his life for his two brothers, who could turn the world upside down for his three sisters and who would bring the world onto it's knees for the little baby who was going to be the new chapter of all their lives. He could do a million things for them and they couldn't get him the one thing he desired the most, one word, one person. Annika.

They couldn't because they couldn't do that toher. If there was one person who was as dear to them as Shivaay, it was Annika. Shivaay was theiranchor and Annika had been his. Whatever the situation today, the truth could never change. Annika hadn't only left him, she had left them all. Willingly. And they could never, ever blame her.

Four years ago, they all had been surprised at the revelation that she was an orphan but had done little to hide their surprise. And she was affected by it, by their sudden hesitations, the awkwardness between her and them that had emerged after the truth came out. They were just subtle expressions, nothing big but it had affected her nonetheless. She may have endured it all until everything was back to normal, which it was going to be in a few days, if it was not for Mrs. Pinky Singh Oberoi and her big mouth, who had just got a big gun to point it towards her fateechar, sadakchhap and useless daughter-in-law and shoot her down with bullets of insults and dirty words. And when anyone tried to stop her, she would scream and shout at them.

But the thing that had affected Annika the most was Shivaay's sudden silence, his lack of words, his distance from her. The mother's mental torture and the son's physical distance pushed her enough that she broke of the threads of this marriage, which had started to feel like a noose in her neck, like shackles on her body. She had left in the middle of the night and Shivaay's life was plunged into darkness from that day forth.

"What should we do?" Gauri asked her husband who sat in front of her in the open-café, a cup of hot tea in her hands going cold by the minute.

Omkara sighed heavily and shook his head in desperation, looking away at the people walking around, laughing and smiling with their loved ones, and looked basck at his pretty wife who sat there with a confused state of mind.

"What can we do Gauri? It is too late now. If Shivaay does not want to do anything, how can we? It's been three days since she left and he still hasn't contacted her. Who knows what's going on in his mind?" He said and Gauri bit her lip, nodding.

Rudra and Soumya joined them a minute later with their lunch and the half Oberoi family just sat there, eating slowly, trying to come up with plans in their minds but in vain.